


Father Knows Best

by nadiacreek



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Arranged Marriage, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3849856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadiacreek/pseuds/nadiacreek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To avoid being forced into arranged marriages, best friends Blaine and Kurt decide to pretend they’re already married — to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The dining room table was set formally for a meal of multiple courses. The overhead lights were dimmed slightly, and the pale green tablecloth was bathed in pools of candlelight at intervals. The silverware gleamed and the water glasses sparkled. Blaine’s father sat at the head of the table, his mother around the side at his right.

Blaine apprehensively slid into the chair opposite his mother. The formality of the dinner was definitely a bad sign. In fact, seeing his parents at the dinner table together at all was usually a bad sign. They preferred to avoid each other whenever possible.

Pam’s smile was excessively sweet. Blaine answered her questions about his day at school cautiously. Not that there was much to tell. Final exams were over, glee club competitions were long past, and the last few days of the school year were nothing more than a holding pattern until the teachers could finish grading.

Thomas cleared his throat. “Blaine, your mother and I have been discussing your future.”

This could not be good. “I’m going to NYU. You know that. We sent in the tuition deposit more than a month ago.”

“Yes, and we’re happy with your educational choices. It’s more personal matters that we’re concerned about. Stability. Safety. Your future happiness.”

Blaine stared at him. He couldn’t understand what his father was getting at.

“We’re going to arrange a marriage for you,” Pam said gently.

Blaine must have lost his grip on his fork, because he heard it clatter against his plate. He found himself speechless.

“We think it’s for the best,” Thomas said.

“You said you wouldn’t!” Blaine was still in shock, his brain having trouble grasping onto anything resembling a logical argument. He was on the verge of panic. “You said you didn’t want your kids to end up like you. Do you even talk to each other anymore? How did you happen to be in the same room long enough to come up with this horrible plan?”

“We did say that,” Pam admitted. “But after seeing how Cooper struggled on his own, we didn’t want to make those same mistakes with you.”

“I’m not Cooper! I’m nothing like him! Why don’t you go arrange a marriage for him, if you’re so mad about how he turned out?”

Thomas sighed impatiently. “You know we can’t do that, Blaine. He’s over twenty-five, so he’s on his own. And believe me, we tried. Once we saw how his life was careening out of control, Pam and I looked for a wife for him, but it was too late. Nobody wanted to attach their daughter to someone like that. We missed our chance to put his life on the right track. But it’s not too late for you, Blaine. You’re just eighteen, a solid young man, and we want to make sure you have the best possible chance for happiness.”

“You cannot do this!”

“Legally, we can. And we’re doing it. It’s not a discussion.”

“I know it’s going to take some time to get used to the idea, honey,” Pam said in a conciliatory tone. “But it really is for the best. Young people don’t understand what they need for their own happiness. They just don’t have the life experience to make good choices. Your father and I love you, and we know you better than you know yourself. Trust us. We’ll choose a young man who will be an excellent partner for you. You’re going to be happy, Blaine, I promise.”

“Right,” Blaine sneered. “Just like your parents made excellent choices for you.”

Pam and Thomas glanced at each other uncomfortably. Their marriage wasn’t terrible—there was no abuse or infidelity or serious unhappiness. It was just that there was no spark in it. They lived like roommates, each doing their separate activities alone most of the time, cooperating on logistics when it was convenient. Their parents hadn’t made a huge mistake, but they hadn’t made the best choice, either.

Blaine pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “You can’t do this to me. I’m not going through with this.”

“We can, and you will,” Thomas said firmly.

Blaine stormed out of the room.

“You’ll thank us when you’re older,” his father called after him.

Blaine slammed the door to his room and picked up his phone. Maybe there was nothing he could do to get himself out of this obnoxious, unfair mess, but he knew that the only thing with a chance of making him feel better was talk to his best friend about it. He dialed Kurt’s number.

\-----------------

Kurt raced down the stairs, still shoving his arm into the sleeve of his jacket as he picked up his keys from the table beside the door. “I’m going over to Blaine’s, Dad. It’s an emergency.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up there.” Burt switched off the TV. “Dinner’s coming out of the oven in five minutes, can’t it wait?”

Kurt shook his head frantically, buttoning up the jacket. “His parents just told him they’re forcing him into an arranged marriage. He’s really upset and I said I would come over so he can vent.”

Burt frowned, not quite the sympathetic response that Kurt had expected.

“Ah … Kurt? Can you come sit down for a minute?” Burt patted the couch cushion beside him. Bewildered, Kurt crossed the room and sat down with him.

“I was going to wait and tell you this in a few days, after school is done, but I guess if the subject’s on your mind, I might as well tell you now.”

Kurt’s eyes widened in horror. This could not possibly be happening.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and talking it over with Carole, and I decided that I just can’t let you go off to New York alone. It’s not safe for a young, single guy out there. It’s crowded and busy, and you don’t have a community to look out for you the way you do in a small place like Lima. You need to have someone to watch your back, someone who’s always in your corner.”

“What are you saying, Dad? Because it can’t possibly be what I think you’re saying.”

“I’m gonna arrange a marriage for you,” Burt said.

“Don’t, Dad,” Kurt said softly, barely able to breathe. “Please. You know I want to choose my own husband.”

“I know, Kurt. I know. And trust me, this was not an easy decision. If you feel strongly about it, I won’t force you to get married—but you can’t go to New York if you don’t. If you want to stay single and look for your own husband one day, you’ll have to stay here in Lima, with me and Carole, where we can keep an eye on you and make sure you’re okay. I’m not going to let you go off to New York unless you’re married.”

“But … Dad … after all the work it took to get into NYADA …” Tears threatened to fall from Kurt’s eyes. He understood why his father was worried about him, especially after Finn’s death, but he still couldn’t believe that Burt would take such drastic measures.

“I’m sorry, son, but you’re just going to have to decide which one is more important to you. It’s for your own good. You know that. I’m just looking out for the best for you.”

Kurt stood up stiffly. He was too distraught right now. Later, after he had time to think it over, maybe he could come up with an argument that would convince his dad to let him go to New York without being married. Right now, he needed to be somewhere else. “Can I go now? To Blaine’s house?”

Burt’s features softened a little bit. “Sure. Of course. Talk it over with your best friend. Since you’re both in the same boat, maybe you can help each other feel better about it.”

Kurt left the house without another word, anger and confusion seething beneath his cold exterior.

\-----------------

Pam greeted Kurt at the door with a warm smile and a friendly greeting, but he shot her his most scornful glare and stomped up the stairs.

Safely ensconced in Blaine’s room, he told Blaine of the conversation he’d just had with his father. They took turns ranting about the unfairness of the world and the unfeelingness of their parents, nodding in sympathy when it was the other’s turn to speak, until the words turned to tears and they ended up crying into each other’s shoulders, shaking with the sense of helplessness they both felt.

Finally, left exhausted by the outpouring of so many emotions, they lay listlessly atop the quilt on Blaine’s bed, on their backs, staring at the blank white ceiling. Kurt couldn’t stop thinking about all the sleepovers they’d had in this room over the years. So many nights of staying up too late, whispering about everything from glee club gossip to their schoolboy crushes on straight guys to their dreams for the future. After they’d both been accepted to colleges in New York, they’d assumed their friendship would continue on pretty much the same. Late nights together with pizza and homework, helping each other navigate the new worlds of college and the big city, hopefully supporting each other through crushes on guys who were actually gay and their first tentative steps into the dating world.

Now it wouldn’t be that way. Now they’d each have a husband to go home to, someone else who would share their days with them. Their friendship would still last, of course, but it would be completely different. And that was true whether their marriages turned out good or bad. It felt like their whole world together was about to end.

“At least you have some choice in the matter,” Blaine said. “You can say no, and stay in Lima, if you want. I don’t even get that much. My parents say I have to get married no matter what.”

Kurt snorted. “A Sophie’s Choice. How can I give up either of my babies—true love or New York?”

“Still, it’s something. Maybe you can defer NYADA for a year and mope around a lot and your dad might change his mind. Or maybe you’ll fall in love within the next year, and get married. You never know. True love can always be right around the corner.”

“In Lima?” Kurt scoffed. “Unlikely. You’ve been to Scandals, you know there’s nobody worth my time here. If I stay, I’m stuck. It’s probably better to let my dad choose someone. He’ll get to look through the profiles of guys from New York, or guys who are moving to New York from anywhere.”

“You could do that, too. You could sign up for a long-distance dating service. Your dad’s not the only one with access to profile data.”

Kurt screwed up his face. This idea didn’t seem appealing to him, for some reason. “I guess so. I just … I have this ideal of falling in love in person. Long-distance isn’t the same thing.”

“Anyway, my point is,” Blaine said, “at least you have some choices, even if they’re not great ones. I’ve got no way out of this marriage my parents are planning for me.”

“That’s true,” Kurt said glumly. “Unless you get married to someone of your own choice before they finish making the arrangements.”

“Not much chance of that. I’m sure they’ll want the wedding to be this summer, before I go off to college. It would be next to impossible to find someone, fall in love, and marry him, within just a couple of months.”

“What if …” Kurt’s eyes lit up as an idea occurred to him. He sat up straight in bed. “Blaine! I figured it out! You don’t have to actually get married. You just have to _convince your parents_ that you’re already married!”

“I don’t follow …”

“You need a pretend husband! Someone who’s going to New York and will pretend to be married to you. Then you can go to college, still single, and do whatever you want! Nobody in New York even has to know about it. It’s perfect!”

Blaine’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he sat up sharply. “That’s insane, Kurt. Faking a marriage to avoid an arranged marriage is illegal.”

“It’s only illegal if you lie to the government about it. It’s not illegal to just lie to your parents.”

“It’s still immoral!”

“It’s immoral for parents to force their kids to get married in the first place. Why do we even have this stupid law?”

“For the stability of society. Married couples are less likely to engage in crime and children who are raised in—”

Kurt put one hand on his hip. “Whose side are you _on_ , Blaine?”

“Sorry.” Blaine bit his lip. “Anyway, even if your plan wasn’t completely crazy—which it is—where would I even find someone who would want to pretend to be married to me? It would never happen.”

Kurt smiled broadly, his eyes twinkling, ready to reveal the final piece of his plan. “Blaine Anderson, my best friend, my co-conspirator, my New York exploring partner … will you fake marry me?”


	2. Chapter 2

“If we’re going to do this,” Blaine said, “we need to do it quickly. I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing my parents are still in the early stages of arranging a marriage. If they get around to formally filing any documents, we could end up in a big mess with the government, and neither of us wants that.”

Kurt agreed. The whole thing was completely crazy, but the adrenaline of accomplishing their plan sustained him for the few days it took to get everything done.

Forging a marriage certificate was surprisingly easy. A web search turned up several scans of official Ohio forms, and half an hour of Photoshop work placed their names seamlessly in the correct places. A high quality print job at FedEx Office, undertaken when the shop was too busy for anyone to be paying attention to them, provided a physical copy. Blaine’s scrapbooking supplies in Kurt’s careful, detail-oriented hands provided a near-enough replica of a raised seal to fool their parents. Or so they hoped.

The only thing left was to disappear for long enough to have plausibly gotten married. Saturday morning was their graduation ceremony, and all of New Directions had plans for a big celebratory brunch at Rachel’s house. Kurt and Blaine managed to create enough confusion over who was riding with whom that the two of them slipped away unnoticed.

“How long does a courthouse wedding take?” Kurt asked halfway through their second loop around the wooded hiking trail they’d driven to, half an hour outside of Lima. A cool breeze blew gently against his skin and birds chirped in the trees above their heads. It was really kind of pleasant, even though he wasn’t usually much of a fan of nature.

“I don’t know. A couple of hours?” Blaine guessed.

A frog hopped from the edge of the path into the pond they were circling.

“We could probably head back pretty soon, then.”

Blaine hummed noncommittally. “I’m kind of enjoying myself. It’s so peaceful out here. Things have been so frantic the past few weeks, with the end of the school year and the arranged marriage thing and our whole elaborate plan … it’s nice to be able to breathe again and not worry about anything.”

Kurt didn’t want to say it out loud, but from his perspective, there was still plenty to worry about. Their parents’ reaction when they told them they were married, for one. Pretending to be married whenever their parents were around, so they wouldn’t start to suspect that the whole thing was a fake. The logistics of moving to New York, and moving in together. He took a deep breath in and out, trying to experiment with not worrying.

“Kurt? How mad do you think they’ll be?” Blaine asked, nervousness creeping back into his voice.

“Probably about as mad as we were when they suggested arranged marriages in the first place,” Kurt snarked.

“So … pretty mad, then.”

Kurt shrugged and gave him a sympathetic smile. “I guess it’s time to go find out.”

\-----------------

They decided to start with Burt because Blaine’s parents were likely to put up more of a fight, and they wanted some practice before getting into that. Blaine watched Kurt’s face harden as he pulled the car into the driveway of the Hummel-Hudson house. They stepped out of the car and joined hands as they walked up to the door. It felt odd, holding Kurt’s hand. They’d held hands a few times before, but only when one or both of them was upset and needed comforting. This time it felt like a form of defiance.

Burt was in the kitchen, and the two of them walked in to confront him there. Blaine could feel the nervous sweat on Kurt’s palm. He was probably sweating too, to be honest. Burt had always been nice to him in the past, but he could be an intimidating man, and Blaine knew he would do anything to protect his son. He suddenly feared being on the wrong end of that protective instinct.

They hadn’t discussed how to broach the subject, and Blaine was surprised to hear Kurt just blurt it out in an angry voice. “We got married.”

Burt turned slowly to face them. His expression was unreadable as he took in their faces, their defiant stances, their joined hands. He set down his bottle of beer on the counter.

“You got married,” Burt repeated, as if he was checking whether he’d heard properly.

“Yes,” Kurt said. He didn’t allow a hint of hesitation in his voice. “Just now. Today.”

Blaine dug the marriage certificate out of his messenger bag with his free hand and held it out to Burt, who took it and looked it over briefly, then handed it back to Blaine.

“Congratulations,” Burt said calmly.

Blaine stole a glance at Kurt, who was glancing at him in bewilderment at the same time.

“Aren’t you mad?” Kurt asked his father.

“Why would I be mad?” Burt asked, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I wanted you to be married before you went off to New York. Now you’re married. To an excellent, upstanding citizen, no less. Win-win.” He took a sip of his beer. “I have to admit, though, I’m a bit surprised. I didn’t know you two had feelings for each other.”

Kurt did his best to retain his angry defiance. “I didn’t think that mattered to you. You were the one who wanted to force me into a marriage to a complete stranger, remember? Feelings need not apply.”

Burt sighed and dropped his attempt at playing it cool. “Kurt, all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy. Honestly, I’m over the moon that you found a way to make this choice for yourself. If you think Blaine is the best person to share your life with, I completely support that.”

“I’m not in love with him. I would never have gotten married this young if you hadn’t forced me into it. I’m still mad at you for taking all of that away from me.” Kurt was shouting, his anger fired up by his father’s refusal to fight over this.

“I know,” Burt said, still calm. “And I can understand why you’re angry about this. But from my perspective, I’m glad you’re married, and I’m glad you chose someone who you think is a good partner for you. If you’re not in love yet, well … that will come in time. That’s how an arranged marriage works, and it’ll work for your marriage of choice, too.”

Kurt scoffed. “Yes, let’s all be so freaking thrilled that I’m slightly less unhappy than you were planning for me to be.”

Blaine squeezed his hand. He didn’t know how much of this Kurt really believed and how much was an act for his father. He hated to be part of Kurt’s unhappiness, and tried to remind himself that ‘less unhappy’ was definitely an improvement over where they’d been before their fake marriage plan. Not to mention that once they got to New York, they wouldn’t have to pretend to be married anymore. This inconvenience was only temporary, after all. The anger over the situation was real, but the permanence of it was just an act.

Burt shook his head, still smiling. “Well, I’m happy for you, Kurt. And you too, Blaine. I think this is going to work out a lot better than you guys think.”

“I can’t even look at you right now,” Kurt growled. “Let’s go, Blaine.” Dropping Blaine’s hand, he turned and stalked toward the door. Blaine ducked his head politely to Burt, and scampered off after his fake husband.

\-----------------

“Blaine, you’re back early,” Pam said when Kurt and Blaine entered the Anderson house. “And Kurt, hello, it’s great to see you. Why aren’t you still at the graduation party?”

Blaine looked down at his feet, and then up again. “I have something to tell you, Mom. Is Dad here? It would be easier if I could tell you both at the same time.”

“I think so,” Pam said, a look of concern on her face. She walked to the stairs and called out Thomas’s name. He appeared a moment later, then trotted downstairs when he saw Kurt and Blaine.

“What’s going on?” Thomas asked, seeming more confused than anything else.

Blaine cleared his throat. Kurt placed a hand on his back, silently sending courage.

“I decided that I couldn’t let the two of you take my future away from me,” Blaine said. “I have to make my own choices, and you weren’t going to give me that freedom, so I went behind your back. I … Kurt and I … we got married. We’re married.”

Kurt knew how hard it was for Blaine to lie, especially to his parents, but he pulled this off without a hitch. All the anger was there, underneath the slight contrition that his ingrained politeness required. All the fierceness borne of desperation came through in his gestures and his tone of voice and his words. Kurt realized for the first time what an incredible stage actor Blaine was going to be.

Pam pressed both hands to her mouth, covering half her face in what must have been shock. Thomas’s jaw dropped. Both of them were silent.

“If you’re going to yell at me, go ahead and yell,” Blaine said.

Pam dropped her hands from her face and pulled her son into a hug. “No, honey, I’m not going to yell. I’m so happy for you, baby boy. So incredibly happy.”

Thomas stepped forward and shook Kurt’s hand. “Congratulations, young man.”

Kurt managed to babble a thank you, but he was completely floored by the response from Blaine’s parents.

Blaine must have been too, because he pulled away from his mother’s hug as soon as he could. “You’re not mad?”

“All we’ve ever wanted was for you to be settled with someone who is a good match for you,” Thomas said. “Kurt is an excellent choice. I approve entirely. We couldn’t have picked better ourselves.”

Pam giggled. “I’m sorry, I know this is very serious, I’m just giddy with excitement. My baby boy, married! I only wish I’d been there to see it. Why did you have to run away and do this without us?”

“I …” Blaine hesitated, knowing that _because it was all a fake and there was no ceremony_ would not be a good answer. “I thought you’d be mad. I thought you’d try to talk us out of it. Neither of us wanted to deal with that, so we just … I’m sorry, Mom. I …”

Her eyes lit up. “Maybe we could have a big party anyway! Later in the summer, with plenty of time to plan it, and …”

“No,” Kurt said firmly. All eyes turned to him.

“This isn’t a celebration for us,” Blaine said.

Kurt nodded. “We didn’t want to get married. We did it because it was better than letting our parents choose our husbands. We don’t want to celebrate it. It is what it is, and that’s that.”

Pam and Thomas glanced at each other. “Of course,” Pam said, her eyes glinting with suppressed mirth.

“Sure, go ahead, laugh at us all you want,” Blaine sulked. “We’re just dumb kids who don’t know what’s best for us. Whatever. Have your fun. We’ll be over here, trying to get on with our lives.”

Thomas nodded sagely. “Have you two given any thought to where you’re going to live for the rest of the summer, before you move to New York?”

Kurt and Blaine looked at each other, eyes wide with shock. They’d thought about New York, about the one-bedroom apartment they would find, halfway between NYADA and NYU, and how they’d put two twin beds in there and live like roommates. But they hadn’t considered the two months they would have to spend in Lima before they moved there. And apparently, Thomas Anderson had plans for them.


	3. Chapter 3

“I am so incredibly sorry about this,” Blaine sighed.

He and Kurt were standing just inside the doorway of the guest suite of the Anderson’s house. The room was above the garage and had its own attached bathroom and private staircase leading to the outside, in addition to the long hallway with a door at each end that connected it to the rest of the house. A queen-size bed took up most of the room. A large suitcase full of Kurt’s clothes took up the corner beside the closet door, waiting to be unpacked.

They’d tried to convince their parents that they didn’t need to live together before moving to New York. This was met first with dismissive laughter, then with increasingly serious lectures about the importance of settling into their new lives together, until they realized that any further protests would risk blowing their cover. Reluctantly, they’d agreed to Thomas’s proposal that they take over the guest suite, since it was available, free of charge, and gave them all the privacy they would need. The arrangements had been made surprisingly quickly, at their parents’ insistence that the boys should be together on their wedding night, those words on their parents’ lips horrifying them both.

“It’s not so bad,” Kurt said. “We’ve had sleepovers hundreds of times. We’ve even shared a bed once or twice, like at the hotel for Nationals last year, remember that? It was fine.”

“I know, but it’s different now.”

Kurt turned to face him. “It shouldn’t be any different. We’re still best friends, just like we always were. And you know, that ‘privacy’ our parents kept going on about works both ways. They’ll never know we’re not … um …” His face flushed red.

“I can sleep on the floor, if you want,” Blaine offered.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We may be teenage boys with all the stereotypical hormones, but we’ve never had any problems controlling ourselves around each other before. We’ll be fine sleeping in the same bed. No reason for either of us to be uncomfortable for months on end.”

But it did feel different, despite the lack of any logical reason that it should. They took turns in the bathroom, fastidiously avoiding not only the sight of each other changing clothes but also any interference with the mundane rituals of skin care and toothbrushing that they’d so often shared. Privacy in their bodies seemed to be of the utmost importance in a way it never had been before. At sleepovers in the past few years, they’d usually worn t-shirts and shorts to bed, but this time, without consulting each other, they both dressed themselves in formal pajama sets covering their arms and legs—Kurt decked out in navy blue, Blaine’s a deep wine color. Nervously, they pulled back the covers together and slid into bed from opposite sides, careful not to touch in the slightest.

Kurt reached across to flick off the lamp on the table beside the bed. A security light on the driveway shone through the mini-blinds above the head of the bed, but it took their eyes a moment to adjust before they could see in the dimness. They were silent for a long minute, staring up at the ceiling.

“Do you think we did the right thing?” Kurt asked. Their plan was crazy on so many levels. Whenever he stopped to think about it, waves of guilt flooded over him. He’d deceived his father. Disobeyed in spirit at least, if not any specific order. Subverted the purpose of the arranged marriage law, and contributed to the instability of society in their own small way. As much as he treasured his personal freedom, he felt terrible about his rebellious and antisocial behavior.

Kurt felt the mattress bounce as Blaine shifted to place his hands beneath his head on the pillow. There was a long pause. “I think so,” Blaine finally said. “I can’t imagine being married to a stranger. I start to panic every time I think about it, honestly.”

“Some people like it, though,” Kurt said. “Mercedes asked her parents to arrange a marriage for her. They’re still working on finding a good match, but she says it makes her feel calm and safe to know that the people who love her most in the world are going to decide her future.”

“But that’s not me. That’s not either of us.”

Kurt smiled into the darkness. “I’ve never been content to let others decide anything for me, that’s for sure.”

“That’s what I like about you. You’re so determined to make your own way through life, no matter what.”

Kurt turned his head to face Blaine. He could only see the outline of his profile in the darkness. He pondered this description of himself and found it very accurate, though he’d never really thought about it that way. He thought about Blaine, and whether the description fit him as well. Not quite, he decided. A touch different. “And you’re determined to be yourself, even when there’s so much pressure to conform,” he said.

His eyes were adjusted just enough to see Blaine’s mouth stretch into a broad smile.

“We just have to get through the next few months,” Kurt said. “After we get to New York, things will be much easier. Nobody will know us, and there will be no reason to pretend that we’re married. We can start dating other guys. As long as we don’t mention anything about it to our parents, there shouldn’t be any problem.”

“And what’s the endgame? We eventually get married to other guys? Without telling our parents first? And then we reveal that it’s been a lie all along? Do both of us have to get married at the same time? If you meet someone first, will you wait around until I find someone to marry too?”

Kurt bit his lip. “I hadn’t thought that far in advance.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than I thought at first,” Blaine admitted. “But I still think we did the right thing. The alternative is just too horrible to contemplate.”

Kurt rolled onto his side, facing Blaine, his head propped up on one hand. “Hey … we’ll figure it out together, okay? One step at a time.”

Blaine smiled at him. “I know we’ll manage somehow.”

Kurt set his head back down on the pillow, still facing Blaine. He wished they’d had more time to think through their plans, but time had been of the essence and they’d done the best they could. They would just have to keep thinking on their feet, that was all. They’d get through it one way or another. He and Blaine were a great team. They could do almost anything, as long as they had each other.

Kurt was about to drift off to sleep when Blaine spoke up again. “Kurt? How do you think people act after they have sex?”

“Um … cuddly?” he answered sleepily.

“No, I mean, not immediately after. Like, the next day. Um. When they’re around other people.”

Kurt opened his eyes, trying to figure out what Blaine was getting at.

“Everyone is going to assume that we …” Blaine didn’t finish his sentence.

Kurt’s eyes widened. “Oh! You think we should try to act like we … tonight … oh god …”

“I don’t want anyone to get suspicious,” Blaine said.

Kurt thought about this. “I don’t think they … I don’t think we would … do you?”

“You’re going to have to finish one of those sentences if I’m going to have a chance of answering it correctly.”

Thank god for the darkness that kept Blaine from seeing Kurt blush. His reassurances earlier in the evening seemed hollow now that they were in bed together, in the dark, and talking about specifics. “I don’t think we would necessarily have … sex … right away if we were married. I mean, we made it clear to our parents that we got married as a last resort, not out of love. They know we didn’t want to share a room. I don’t think they’ll expect us to start … um … doing that … tonight.”

“I don’t know, Kurt.” Blaine’s voice had a touch of amusement in it, if Kurt wasn’t mistaken. “I mean, we’re both young, virile, attractive teenage boys. You don’t have to be in love to enjoy sex. If we really were married, would there be any reason not to?”

Kurt sat up in bed, pulling the covers close around his waist. His heart pounded with irrational panic and fear. “I’m not ready.”

Blaine sat up too, suddenly much more serious. “I’m not … oh god, Kurt, I’m not propositioning you. I know you want to wait and find the right person and fall in love. I’m just saying, _if_ we were really married, and we knew that falling in love with someone else wasn’t an option, don’t you think that under those circumstances we would—”

“No,” Kurt yelped. He was too embarrassed to think straight. “I’m not ready, so no, we wouldn’t.”

Blaine sat there silently for a moment. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry for bringing it up. I didn’t mean to upset you, honestly, I’m sorry.”

Kurt took a deep breath and lay back down, pulling the covers up to his chin. Blaine was watching him intently, but it was too dark to figure out what he might be thinking. “It’s okay,” Kurt said. “I didn’t mean to freak out. It was a reasonable question.”

“So we’ll just keep on acting angry?” Blaine asked. “That should be easy because … well, because we both still are angry about the whole thing.”

“Yeah.”

Blaine lay down again beside Kurt, carefully keeping several inches of open space between them.

“Blaine?” Kurt said hesitantly. “I’m angry, but not at you. Just … I want you to know that. I’m angry at my dad, and at your parents, and at the world. But you … you’re the one making things okay, so … thank you for that.”

“Me too,” Blaine whispered.

“And … I think I would have wanted to have sex with you someday. If we were married, I mean.”

Blaine smiled into the darkness and took a long breath.

“Me too,” he answered.

Kurt smacked him with a pillow. “You made that perfectly clear already, you dufus.”

They collapsed into giggles, and eventually, into sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Aside from their parents, neither Kurt nor Blaine told a single person that they were married. They didn’t change their relationship status on Facebook. They certainly didn’t send out announcements. They didn’t even tell their closest friends.

Yet word trickled out anyway, and with it, gifts began to appear at their home. The first ones were mailed from their extended family in other states. Some were given to Blaine’s parents at church or at the country club. Finally, gifts arrived in the hands of their closest friends, the ones who would have been the first to know about their marriage if it had been something real and celebrated.

They hadn’t registered for wedding gifts, of course, so the presents they received were random and ridiculous. There was a hideous set of pink and green striped bath towels, a set of picture frames ornate enough to be displayed in the palace of King Louis XIV, and three fondue sets. Anyone with any good sense or good taste sent money instead.

Kurt’s eyes nearly popped out of his head one afternoon when he returned home and found Blaine painstakingly writing out thank you notes on gorgeous stationery with _Kurt & Blaine_ ornately printed at the top.

“What on earth are you doing?” he asked. “Aren’t we returning these things to the people who sent them?”

Blaine shook his head, quietly appalled. “We can’t do that, Kurt. It would be the height of rudeness to return a wedding gift.”

“But we’re not married!”

“We can’t very well tell them that!”

Kurt surveyed the atrocious gifts that were stacked around the room. “I am not, I repeat, _not_ bringing any of these things to New York. I absolutely will not have them in my home.”

“But Kurt …” Blaine looked up at him with wide, soulful eyes. “What if we want to make three different types of fondue on the same night, then accidentally spill some on the floor and need spare towels to wipe up the mess with, and then want to memorialize the event by taking some selfies and having them printed and framed?”

Kurt opened his mouth to shoot back a judgmental bit of snark, but realized just in time that Blaine had to be joking. He shut his mouth again and pressed his lips together, but couldn’t stop the giggles from escaping. Blaine’s expression transformed too, and before they knew it, they were both rocking with peals of laughter.

“Honestly, though,” Blaine said as their laughter subsided, “I don’t feel right about keeping any of these things. What do you think about donating them to charity?”

Kurt hesitated for only a moment, thinking of all the clothes and home décor they could buy with the large stack of checks they’d been given, not to mention the proceeds from selling the rest of the gifts on eBay. But Blaine was right. All of those gifts were based on a lie, and if they couldn’t return them, the only honorable thing to do was to donate them.

They gave the household goods to a domestic violence shelter that helped abused spouses petition for divorce and set up their own places to live. The money gifts were deposited into Blaine’s account, after which he wrote a check for the full amount to Voluntary Marriage Now, the largest advocacy group fighting to make arranged marriages illegal. They felt lighter once the gifts were off their hands, and they signed up to do some volunteer work over the summer for both organizations, too.

Blaine continued hand-writing personalized thank you notes for weeks after the gifts had been given away, consulting the list he kept of each item and who had sent it. Kurt had to admit it was completely adorable. He would have offered to help, but he didn’t share Blaine’s talent for writing believable platitudes. He addressed the envelopes instead, using graceful calligraphy and sneaking glances at the content of Blaine’s notes from time to time.

“ _Dear Aunt Zelda, Thank you for the southwestern-style ceramic vase you sent. Kurt and I are thrilled to decorate our new home with such beautiful decorative objects,”_ Kurt read aloud over Blaine’s shoulder. “Just not these particular ones or anything like them,” he added with a smirk.

Blaine took care to keep his hand steady for the next sentence he was writing. “You should see her house. The entire thing looks like a New Mexico pueblo.”

“But she lives in Connecticut,” Kurt said, wrinkling his forehead as he looked at the envelope he’d just finished addressing.

“Exactly,” Blaine said.

Kurt threw his head back and laughed out loud. “Oh, Blaine, you have so many relatives for me to judge. It makes my day!”

Blaine met his eye with a sly smile. “I know I shouldn’t admit this, but it’s fun to hear you say out loud the things I’ve always thought in my head.”

Kurt nudged his shoulder. “We think alike, but I’m way less polite than you. Or at least, I have less filter.”

Blaine’s eyes sparkled with delight. Kurt grinned back at him like an idiot. They really did have so much fun together. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, Kurt thought. After all, they’d been best friends for years. But they’d spent a lot more time together than usual over the past few weeks, and they were reaching a new level of familiarity with each other. Kurt had to admit, he was having some of the best times of his life. Neither of them had a summer job, which left them with long stretches of free time. They’d settled into a pattern of doing most things together, even though nothing compelled them to, and they were both enjoying it so much there was no reason to stop. Kurt was looking forward to living with Blaine in New York, too, where they’d have so many new places to explore together.

Their level of comfort around each other had grown as well. After the first few awkward nights, they’d realized that nothing terrifying was about to happen between them, and they’d both calmed down. They hadn’t become cuddly or anything like that, and still made sure to keep to their own sides of the bed. But it seemed natural to sleep beside each other now, after sharing their days together. Sometimes, when Kurt was wracked with irrational anxieties over going to college or moving to New York or finding someone to love for real someday, the sound of Blaine’s deep, sleeping breaths calmed and soothed him.

Blaine was the keeper of his secrets. Blaine could be trusted with anything.

“Do you know I used to have a crush on you?” Kurt fiddled with the edge of the thank you note envelope, not meeting Blaine’s eyes.

“Really? When?” Blaine sounded surprised and curious more than anything else, to Kurt’s relief.

“Remember when we were fourteen and you had that early puberty growth spurt?” A small smile spread across Kurt’s face, and he let himself glance up briefly.

Blaine chuckled. “I kept waiting for the second half of that, but it never came…”

“All of a sudden you looked like a grown-up. Taller than me, broad-shouldered, peach fuzz on your chin …” Kurt sighed happily at the memory. “I thought you had it all together. I was so in awe of you. You were like Prince Charming in a Dalton Academy uniform.”

“And then you realized I was still the same fuck-up as always?” Blaine’s eyes danced with laughter.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Kurt played along with Blaine’s self-deprecating humor to avoid creating the tension that had the potential to turn this conversation into dangerous territory.

“I had a crush on you too, once.”

Now it was Kurt’s turn to be surprised. How had he missed that?

“It was a few years later,” Blaine said. “Remember when Pavarotti died and you sang Blackbird for him at Warblers rehearsal? That moment was … I don’t know how to describe it. All of a sudden you seemed like the most amazing, beautiful person I’d ever seen.”

“And then it all came crashing down,” Kurt joked, embarrassed by this new revelation.

Blaine’s smile was kind and sweet. “Well, it only took me a few days to realize that you were the same old Kurt who had always been my best friend, not some angel descended from heaven. And to be honest, I like it better that way. There’s no one I get along with as well as you.”

“It’s kind of too bad we didn’t have our crushes at the same time,” Kurt said, and then immediately regretted it.

Blaine thought about this. “It would have been nice, maybe, to explore some firsts with you. First kiss? In that awkward, middle-school kind of way?”

Kurt arched an eyebrow. “What do you know about first kisses, hmm? Have you been getting some action and not telling me?”

“Hah, no. Still a kiss virgin, sadly.” Blaine paused and looked at Kurt strangely. “But what I mean is, it’s different now. When you’re fourteen you can do stuff like that and it’s not … there’s no fear of … when you’re so young … now it would be … different. I wouldn’t want to mess up our …”

“No, of course not,” Kurt said quickly. This was exactly what he had been afraid of, and he needed to cut off the discussion right away. “Anyway, soon we’ll be in New York, surrounded by loads of gorgeous gay guys, and we’ll both have the chance for truly memorable first kisses.”

Blaine smiled, a flicker of excitement in his eyes. “I can’t wait.”


	5. Chapter 5

August swept in with a record-breaking heat wave, and the Andersons’ air conditioning unit stopped working. The repairman couldn’t get the necessary replacement part until the next day, which meant that they were stuck with fans and open windows when the overnight low wasn’t projected to go below eighty degrees.

Blaine pulled his pajama pants out of the dresser drawer and opened another drawer, searching for the lightest-weight t-shirt he could find. He fingered a threadbare white undershirt shoved in the back, sighing at the thought of wearing even that much clothing all night long. He turned to Kurt, who was making a similarly displeased face at the several pajama options he’d laid out on the bed.

“Would it be okay if we wear less tonight?” Blaine asked. “It’s so hot and stuffy in here. I don’t mind if you don’t.”

Kurt looked relieved. “That would be fabulous. What do you usually wear to bed? I mean, before I moved in.”

“I usually just sleep in my underwear,” Blaine answered truthfully.

“Okay,” Kurt said. His voice was unexpectedly calm.

“Really?” Blaine was surprised. “I mean, we could do shorts, I think I have a few pairs of workout shorts that would be okay to sleep in …”

“No, it’s fine,” Kurt said. His cheeks were pink, but his voice was even and breezy. The color on his face must be just from the heat, Blaine thought. He couldn’t remember if it had been there before.

“If you’re sure…”

“Of course,” Kurt said. “It’s totally fine.”

Kurt started folding up all the pajamas he’d laid out, getting ready to put them away again, so Blaine turned back to the dresser and then walked to the bathroom with a very different clothing choice. Kurt was right, they’d be fine. After all, they’d been sharing a bed all summer and nothing had happened. Friends could do these sorts of things. Close friends like he and Kurt were. There was no reason to be uptight about it. Blaine hummed happily to himself as he brushed his teeth, washed his face with colder water than usual because of the heat, and changed his clothes.

When he emerged from the bathroom wearing his favorite pair of easter-egg-colored plaid boxer shorts, Kurt was just slipping into bed. Kurt. In the bed. Wearing nothing but a tiny pair of tight, camouflage-print gray briefs. His mouth went dry and his eyes flicked away quickly, hoping Kurt hadn’t noticed his reaction.

Kurt, fortunately, seemed oblivious. He lay on his stomach on the bed, upper body propped up on his elbows in a way that looked like some kind of yoga pose crossed with an enticing sex kitten. All the blood rushed out of Blaine’s head, and he started to feel dizzy. Kurt turned his head toward Blaine, a coy smile on his lips. Was it coy? Or was it Blaine’s imagination? He couldn’t tell. “Can you get the light?” Kurt asked.

“Sure, of course,” Blaine stammered. He reached his hand toward the light switch on the other side of the bathroom door, fumbling a few times before he made contact.

The security light on the driveway shone through the window, as annoying as ever. All the blankets were folded at the foot of the bed, leaving only the crisp white sheet covering Kurt’s body. It practically seemed to glow in the dark room, highlighting the inward curve of his lower back that transformed into the luscious swell of his ass.

“Is it too dark for you to find your way to the bed? I could turn on the lamp if you need.”

Blaine realized he must have been staring for far too long. He practically lunged for the bed, trying to make up for it, but most likely making his actions seem even weirder to Kurt. “No, I’m sorry, I was just … thinking. About stuff. Like … um … I have to finalize my first semester course selection at NYU tomorrow.”

He pulled the sheet back on his side of the bed and lay down on his back, draping the sheet lightly over himself. The heat was stifling, and he wished he could feel the breeze from the ceiling fan on the bare skin of his body. Unbidden, an image of himself and Kurt lying naked on the bed flashed into his mind. He willed it away, but it was too late. He’d gotten hard immediately. And with only his boxers and a thin sheet covering him, Kurt might be able to see, even in the dark. Panicking, Blaine rolled over onto his side, facing away from Kurt.

“Queer Performance looks really exciting,” Kurt said.

Blaine’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. What on earth was Kurt talking about? It took him a minute to realize that Queer Performance was one of the classes NYU offered. They’d looked through the course catalog together a few days ago. “Oh! Um … yeah, but it’s an upper-level elective. I need to do the prerequisites first.” He swore in his head. How was he going to get rid of this boner without Kurt noticing? Queer Fucking Performance indeed.

“True,” Kurt said. “So are you going to go full speed ahead with courses for your major right away, or ease into it?”

Oh, for Christ’s sake! Was Kurt saying these things on purpose? He couldn’t be. Even if he’d noticed Blaine’s … problem … it wasn’t like him to tease this way. He would have just made a snarky joke and sent Blaine off to take care of it. The double entendres must be inadvertent. Blaine stifled a groan. The things he would like to ease into right now … he might lose his mind if he thought about them. Maybe he could run back to the bathroom and jerk off in there. But he’d just come out of the bathroom a minute ago. It would definitely make Kurt suspicious if he went back so soon.

Blaine heard the sounds of Kurt settling his head on the pillow. He felt the soft air of Kurt’s breath tickling the back of his neck. He must have turned in the same direction as Blaine. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to talk about this stuff. I’ll stop.”

“It’s fine, I’m just … stressed out,” Blaine said, trying not to let his voice crack. He moved his hand, trying to press it against his dick with enough pressure to relieve the tension, but not enough so that Kurt would notice.

“Can I help with that?” Kurt said softly.

“No!” Blaine squeaked. “Excuse me, I have to use the restroom.” He bolted out of bed and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

Alone in the room, Kurt let out a regretful sigh. It had been worth trying, but Blaine’s reaction made it clear that he wasn’t interested in a relationship. Instead of pursuing Kurt, he’d run away from him. It was mortifying. He was glad he hadn’t been more obvious about his emotions, because at least he was spared the embarrassment of outright admitting how he was starting to feel.

Living with Blaine had been more insidious than he’d ever expected. Day after day, being near Blaine and his charming behavior, adorable stories, all the fun they had together … Kurt couldn’t help but develop feelings for him. He didn’t think Blaine felt the same way, and he didn’t blame him. Their whole arrangement had been set up to let them both go to New York as single, eligible bachelors. He couldn’t expect that Blaine would change his mind about that.

Ah, well. It was just another unrequited crush, not anything to be so upset about. In a few weeks they’d be in New York, with a whole world at their fingertips. He’d forget all about this letdown soon enough. He’d have a real boyfriend before he knew it.

Blaine slipped back into bed beside him, and Kurt smiled at him. “You feeling okay?”

“Fine. Just … uh … something I ate, probably.”

“It’s this heat,” Kurt said. “It makes everything feel unsettled.”

“Yeah. Sleep well, Kurt.”

“You too.”

They would always care about each other, of course, Kurt reminded himself. They would always be the best of friends.


	6. Chapter 6

Arriving in New York was a relief. From the moment they drove their U-Haul into the city limits, Kurt and Blaine both felt a weight lift from their shoulders. They’d made it. Their scheme had done the trick. They were single, in the big city, with a world of opportunities ahead of them.

Pretending they were married had been harder than Kurt ever imagined. Not the acting part. It was surprisingly easy to pretend Blaine was his husband. Scarily easy. Knowing smiles across the dinner table for the benefit of Blaine’s parents, an arm around him on the couch at Burt and Carole’s house while watching baseball on TV, the way they’d even begun to finish each other’s sentences—no, pretending to be married to Blaine was not an acting challenge at all.

The challenge was remembering that it was only pretend, and keeping the emotional distance necessary to prevent himself from falling head over heels for the incredible man that Blaine had grown up into. How had he not noticed, over the slow passage of months and years, that Blaine was perfection? The sweetness and calm that radiated from him at all times was a balm to Kurt’s soul, and when he smiled at Kurt, well, Kurt couldn’t prevent himself from smiling back instantly, even if he’d wanted to. And his body was … but he wasn’t going to let himself think about that. His body was off-limits, because Blaine was looking forward to being New York City’s most eligible bachelor. Which meant that he was available to everyone except Kurt.

But here was Blaine, kneeling on the floor of their apartment with his arms and head buried in a packing box marked OPEN ME FIRST – USEFUL ITEMS, his t-shirt riding up and exposing a sliver of skin as he stretched his back, and Kurt wanted nothing more than to walk right up to him and _open him first_.

“Gotcha!” Blaine emerged from the box with the iPod speaker he’d been searching for. “And now for some unpacking music.”

\-----------------------

Blaine thumbed through his iPod, scanning his playlists. He’d meant to put together a playlist specifically for this moment, to celebrate their triumphant arrival in New York and get them through the tedious work of unpacking and setting up the apartment. But somehow he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. The first time he’d made an attempt, he’d ended up getting distracted and selecting all sorts of songs that were full of melancholy and longing, which didn’t suit either the celebratory or the energy-boosting purposes. He’d deleted it and had meant to try again when he was in a better mood, but he’d never gotten around to it, for some reason.

He selected one of his exercise playlists instead. At least it would be high energy, and the songs were current. It would be fun to sing along while they unpacked. He set the iPod in the dock and the opening chords of “Raise Your Glass” rang out.

Kurt smiled that wide smile that always made Blaine’s heart clench. Blaine smiled back, halfhearted, and watched Kurt shove a box marked BOOKS AND DVDS over to the low shelf under the television. He sighed and turned to the box of kitchen things. He wondered if Kurt would want to have a say in how to organize the kitchen, but it wasn’t as if there were many options. The kitchen was as tiny as the rest of the apartment. New York was a very different sort of place to live in than Lima, in good ways and bad.

He would miss somethings about Lima. The vast amounts of space to spread out in his parents’ two-story home, guaranteeing a place to be alone whenever he needed to be. The smell of freshly-cut grass on the lawn, and the sounds of birds singing in the trees outside the window of the house. Those things would be hard to find here. He’d miss their tight-knit group of friends, too, no matter how much he was looking forward to meeting exciting new people in New York.

At least Kurt was still here. And Rachel, too, at NYADA, but that would be far away from his own stomping grounds at NYU, so he’d probably only see her occasionally. Kurt, though, would be sharing his home, and that was something Blaine had gotten used to surprisingly quickly. It felt comfortable to be with Kurt all the time. If he was being honest with himself, that was another thing Blaine would miss about Lima. He’d settled so comfortably into playing the role of Kurt’s husband that he would be more than a little bit sad to leave it behind.

The sound of scissors ripping through tape made Blaine’s head turn, and he saw that Kurt was already flattening the empty box he’d unpacked. Meanwhile, Blaine had only put three plates away in a cabinet. He hurried himself along, taking the paper wrappings off the next one in the box.

Kurt stood up and walked back to the stack of boxes waiting in the middle of the room, and just then the song changed to Betty Who’s “Somebody Loves You.” Kurt began to dance to the upbeat music, jumping goofily around the room and singing along. Blaine couldn’t take his eyes off him. Time seemed to slow down, and with it, everything in Blaine’s head snapped into focus.

He wasn’t just attracted to Kurt. He wasn’t just Kurt’s best friend. He was in love with Kurt.

He nearly dropped the plate in his hands.

\-----------------------

The bedroom felt so foreign with two twin beds pushed to opposite walls. Blaine’s longing for Lima swept over him in a rush. He tried to shake off the feeling. It was silly. It wasn’t as if they’d spent their nights cuddling together back in Ohio. This wasn’t anything different, not really.

He wondered what Kurt would say if he confessed the feelings he’d only just realized. There was no indication that he felt the same way, as far as Blaine could see. But maybe there was a chance. Maybe if Blaine watched him closely for signs … or maybe if he could be extra-romantic over the next few weeks, maybe Kurt might start to feel something … He would have to think about it, plan a strategy if he wanted things to work.

“I guess we won’t be needing these anymore,” Kurt said. He was holding his wedding ring between his thumb and index finger, examining it as if it were a piece of spoiled food he’d removed from the refrigerator or something.

Blaine’s heart sank. Reluctantly, he slid his own ring off his finger. “I guess not.”

“We should keep them around. For when our parents visit.”

“Of course,” Blaine heard himself saying. Their ruse might not be an everyday performance in New York, but until they were either twenty five years old or legally married to partners of their own choice, their parents could still force them into arranged marriages, so it was crucial they didn’t find out.

Kurt held out his ring to Blaine. “Let’s keep them together.”

“I’ll put them with my bow ties,” Blaine said. He opened the box he kept on top of his dresser and placed the two rings side by side, covering them with a black and white bow tie printed with musical notes. His fingers trembled as he set the lid back on the box. Clearly Kurt didn’t feel the same way he did. Unlike Blaine, he seemed relieved to have the ring off his finger and out of his possession. Blaine’s hand felt naked and wrong without the ring on it. He looked down at his hand, rubbing his thumb over the slight inward pinch of skin where the ring had been. He’d worn it only for a few months. That little indentation on his finger would probably be gone by morning.

Kurt let out a little sigh and headed for the bathroom. Watching him go, Blaine held back tears that he knew were completely ridiculous and overdramatic. He would be over this soon. It was just a minor disappointment, in the grand scheme of things. Circumstance had thrown the two of them together, but in the new circumstances of New York, everything would be different. Tomorrow would start tomorrow.

\-----------------------

Kurt lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. He had thought that getting the ring off his finger would be enough to shake him out of these unwanted feelings. He was no longer supposed to act like Blaine was his husband. That game was over. It was time to move on. But instead of refreshed, he felt sad and alone.

If removing the ring wasn’t enough, maybe a new guy would be an effective distraction. NYADA orientation started tomorrow. New faces would be just what he needed. He hoped he could find someone special right away, and put all of this nonsense about Blaine behind him.

The sounds of city traffic flooded through the window, and Blaine’s soft breathing was too far away for Kurt to hear at all.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Adam Crawford was having quite a lot of trouble deciding whether Kurt Hummel was the hottest man he’d ever seen or the most adorable cupcake in the world. Both, most likely. Both sounded good.

The boy was all legs, to begin with, and then of course those surprisingly muscular shoulders. And lord, did he know how to dress to his best advantage. When Adam looked at the long, lean lines of Kurt’s body, it was all he could do not to rip his clothing off immediately. With his teeth.

But Kurt’s attitude didn’t match his sexy, confident looks. He would start with something rather forward, like asking Adam out on the first day of orientation even though Kurt was a lost little freshman and Adam was one of the senior orientation leaders. But then when it came down to it, Kurt would blush and look down at his feet and begin to mumble like he didn’t have the slightest clue what he was doing. Their first date, last week, had ended so awkwardly.

_“Would you like to come inside?” Adam winked and smiled, gesturing at the door of his dorm building._

_“I … I … gosh, I …”_

_“Kurt?”_

_“I would, but I …”_

_“Kurt, honey, have you ever had a boyfriend before?”_

_Kurt shook his head, seeming almost ashamed._

_“You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”_

_Kurt nodded, still mute._

_“Have you ever kissed a boy?”_

_“No…” Kurt’s voice was so soft that Adam could barely hear him._

_“Would you like to?” Adam didn’t want to push, but their date had gone so well up to this point. Perhaps one simple goodbye kiss would help Kurt feel more confident about himself. And Adam couldn’t stop thinking about how soft and wonderful those lips looked, either._

_“I would, but … not yet. Maybe next time?” Kurt looked up at him, his eyes wide with innocence and nervousness._

Adam’s heart had melted on the spot. He hoped he hadn’t just discovered an innocence kink, because that could go down the skeevy road all too quickly. No, it was just Kurt. Something about his unexpected mix of knowing exactly what he could do to people, and fearing that budding power … Adam had started planning their second date immediately.

But Kurt hadn’t wanted to kiss on their second date, either, even though it was an incredibly romantic candlelight dinner followed by a walk through Central Park. Adam had thought it went exceedingly well. He could see the desire on Kurt’s face. Why, then, had Kurt lowered his eyes and turned away when Adam had tried to kiss him?

 

Now Adam was watching Kurt carefully balance his tray of used dishes as they finished lunch together in the NYADA cafeteria. It was their third date, if you could call a quick lunch between classes a date. They’d just agreed on plans to see a movie together on Saturday. 

Adam pursed his lips and smacked a little air kiss in Kurt’s direction.

Kurt looked around nervously. “Not here, Adam! Anyone could see!”

“And who cares if they do? This isn’t a high school in Ohio, Kurt. Nobody here is going to care about two guys kissing. At least half of them are gay themselves.”

“I know, it’s just … privacy is important to me.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.” Adam looked down at his tray and started gathering his own things. His class didn’t start for another fifteen minutes, but it was useless to stay around here any longer.

“Anyway, I’ll see you on Saturday,” Kurt said before hurrying off.

“Looking forward to it,” Adam called after him.

He watched as Kurt deposited his tray at the bussing station. A familiar-looking petite girl pranced excitedly up to Kurt and gave him a hug, chattering away at a mile a minute before he extricated himself and rushed off to class. She hadn’t been in Adam’s orientation group, but after a moment of thought he remembered her name was Rachel. Kurt had mentioned her a few times. If Adam recalled correctly, she was an old friend of his from high school.

Rachel was headed in Adam’s direction, so he called out a greeting and she stopped at his table.

“You’re close with Kurt, aren’t you?” Adam asked her.

“Oh yes, we go way back,” Rachel answered with a smile. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just …” Adam sighed. “I probably shouldn’t pry, but he’s been acting really strange. We’ve been on three dates now, and have plans for a fourth, and he seems really into me, but he won’t—What? Why are you laughing?”

Rachel was bursting with giggles. “Oh Adam, I’m so sorry, but you must have misunderstood.”

“What do you mean? Misunderstood what?”

“He’s married, Adam. He must be meaning to just hang out with you as friends. They’re not dates. They can’t be.”

Adam’s mouth dropped open. “He’s married?” he asked. The news was absolutely astonishing.

Rachel nodded. “He got married right after high school. That’s why he lives off campus. He shares an apartment with his husband.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” Adam managed to say. “Hey, could you … please not mention this conversation to him? It’s rather embarrassing on my part.”

She winked at him. “It’ll be our little secret.”

This was too much to take in. Adam decided to ditch his class, and headed back to his dorm room instead. He needed some peace and quiet to think this over. Could he possibly have misunderstood? Kurt showed every sign of wanting to date him. They’d outright talked about kissing, even if they hadn’t done it. And with all their friendly chatting, Kurt had never once mentioned a husband. All he’d mentioned was his extreme desire for privacy, which now looked rather suspicious after what Rachel had told him.

No, Adam was absolutely certain that these outings had been dates. Which left two possibilities. Either Kurt was toying with him, playing a game of enticing Adam with flirtatious promises and then leaving him high and dry, or else Kurt was contemplating an affair with Adam and the shyness he’d displayed was all about second-guessing his actions.

Either way, Adam was furious. How dare Kurt manipulate his feelings that way? How dare Kurt entrap Adam into criminal acts without even making him aware of the situation? Kurt’s innocent persona was a ruse, in turned out. It was calculated bait to lure Adam to his own demise.

He picked up the phone and dialed a number, his hands shaking. “Hello, is this the police? I need to report someone on suspicion of adultery.”

\-----------------------

“We need to tell Rachel.”

Blaine looked up from the scene he was trying to memorize for tomorrow’s class. They’d had this discussion before, but up until now Kurt had been on the opposite side. He set the papers down on the coffee table and turned his full attention to Kurt.

“Why the sudden change of heart?”

Kurt dropped his messenger bag by the front door and paced nervously around the room. “She almost saw me and Adam having lunch together. I was already on my way out of the cafeteria, thank god, but if she’d walked in two minutes earlier she would have seen us.”

Blaine’s mouth dried out at the thought of what Kurt and Adam might have been doing together. “But you were just having lunch, right? Not … like fooling around or anything.” Blaine tried to tell himself that he was asking to assess the danger of their secret being revealed. Other than that, he didn’t have any right to know what Kurt and Adam were doing together. He shouldn’t care. Kurt wasn’t his, and never would be.

“No, of course not, but it doesn’t matter. If Rachel saw us together, who knows what she’d think?”

“But you’ve been saying that she’s so wrapped up in her shiny new NYADA life that she won’t notice anything. And you were worried that she’d blab to everyone. You know how terrible she is at keeping secrets.” Blaine wondered why he was protesting this. He’d always been in favor of telling Rachel right away, to have fewer lies to maintain. Maybe he was just unnerved by Kurt’s sudden fears.

“It’s equally likely that she’ll blab in the other direction, though,” Kurt said. “How long will it be before she casually mentions ‘Kurt’s husband’ in conversation? If that happens, game over, everyone at NYADA will think we’re married within a matter of days.”

Blaine’s heart clenched at the mention of himself as Kurt’s husband. No matter what he wished, that was never to be reality. He might as well admit it. “No, you’re right. It’s what I’ve been saying all along, really. Let’s invite her over to dinner sometime this week and explain the whole situation. Okay? I’m sure she’ll understand.”

Kurt nodded and sat down on the couch next to Blaine. “I’m just … this whole thing is more complicated than I ever imagined.”

Blaine squeezed his shoulder in a way that he hoped seemed friendly and comforting. “I know. Me too. But it’s worth it, right? You’ve met this great guy and … how was your lunch date?”

Kurt shrugged, and Blaine let his hand fall away. “Oh, you know. It’s complicated.”

Blaine nodded in understanding, even though he didn’t know at all.

\-----------------------

Kurt couldn’t sleep. Again. Night after night, he found himself awake at all hours, staring into the dark and listening to the sounds of New York City traffic outside his window. Nothing was going the way he’d expected.

There was far too much to worry about. He worried that the entire school would find out that he was married, and he worried that his and Blaine’s parents would find out that he wasn’t. He worried that Adam would break up with him, and he worried that he didn’t like Adam enough. It seemed like he was consumed with opposites. Why couldn’t things be simple? Why couldn’t he have what he wanted? For god’s sake, why didn’t he even _know_ what he wanted? New York was supposed to be a world of opportunities for him. Why did it seem now like it was some sort of cosmic joke turned into a nightmare?

All he wanted was to be with Blaine. And there Blaine was, sleeping peacefully in this very room, but as unreachable as if he were a world away.

An earsplitting bang rocked the walls of the apartment, and Kurt sat straight up in bed, his heart pounding with fear. A second bang followed it, and then the unmistakable sound of the front door collapsing. He looked around for a heavy object to defend himself with, but found nothing. Blaine rolled over in bed and moaned incoherently.

“POLICE! FREEZE!”

A bright flashlight shone into Kurt’s eyes. He put his hands up in the air, utterly terrified.

Someone flipped the light switch and revealed half a dozen uniformed police officers standing just inside the doorway to their bedroom. Blaine sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on? Is this a dream?”

“Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson,” one of the police officers growled. “You are under arrest for the crime of Fraudulent Avoidance of Arranged Marriage. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”


	8. Chapter 8

Kurt and Blaine didn’t see each other again until the following afternoon. They’d been taken to a huge pre-trial holding facility and placed in cells in completely different sections of the building, with no chance of seeing each other or communicating. Now a police officer watched over them in the dingy office they’d been brought to, while they sat on metal folding chairs and waited for whoever was supposed to be on the other side of that desk.

She walked in a few minutes later—a tall, imposing woman with short blond hair, dressed in a power suit and holding several thick folders. She slammed them down on the desk, spun around on her chair for good measure, and then leaned toward them.

“Technically you’re each entitled to a private meeting to discuss the case against you, but then I’d have to say everything twice and frankly, that would be a waste of my time,” she said matter-of-factly. “As I’ve always said, my job is to enforce the law, not to follow it. So let’s get this thing going.”

“Excuse me, but who are you?” Blaine asked warily.

“Sue Sylvester. I’m the prosecutor assigned to both of your cases.” She shook her head sadly, but her eyes were lit up with enjoyment. Apparently she was sadistic enough to take pleasure in other people’s predicaments. “And let me just say from the outset, you are both complete idiots.”

“We didn’t think—” Kurt began, but Sue cut him off.

“Obviously not,” she sneered.

“We didn’t think our parents had filed the arranged marriage paperwork,” Blaine said. “We didn’t think we were breaking the law.”

A mean smile spread across Sue’s face. “Ignorance is no defense,” she said. “But it does make it a lot more fun to watch your faces when you find out what you’re in for.”

Kurt and Blaine exchanged worried glances. They didn’t know exactly what the penalties were for this crime, but they were sure it wouldn’t be just a slap on the wrist. Marriage was the foundation of society, according to the government, and interfering with marriages was usually punished severely.

“Based on your age and your lack of prior convictions, you’re each looking at four years in prison.”

Blaine slumped down in his chair. Kurt’s mouth dropped open. Four years. It was hard to comprehend. It was as long as they would have spent in college. Then they’d come out of prison with criminal records on a charge that would make it hard to ever marry or have prominent careers. The consequences were unthinkable.

“But we’re willing to make you a deal,” Sue said after she’d finished taking delight in their horror.

Blaine’s eyes glimmered with a hint of hope, through the unshed tears that had gathered there.

“What kind of deal?” Kurt asked suspiciously.

“Fortunately for you blundering fools, your intended husbands are still single. If you go through with the marriages that your parents planned a few months ago, we’ll drop all the charges.”

“Oh my god,” the two boys said in unison. Neither of them had given any thought to the husbands their parents had chosen for them before now. Of course they hadn’t. They’d been under the impression that no husbands had been chosen yet. But clearly that wasn’t the case. If they were being charged with this crime, it was because their parents had filed the marriage paperwork. That meant that there were two intended spouses out there, one for Kurt and one for Blaine, who had been left high and dry with no explanation. It was a wonder they—or their parents, really—were still willing to go through with the marriages at all, after Kurt and Blaine had attempted to abandon them.

“So we’ll be no worse off than we would have been if we’d just gone along with it in the first place,” Blaine mused, sounding completely astonished.

“Could have saved yourself a lot of trouble. Could have saved me a lot of trouble, more importantly,” Sue said, closing the folder sharply.

Kurt gritted his teeth, very displeased with the trap that had been sprung on him. “Who is he? The man I’m supposed to marry. What’s his name?”

“You know I can’t tell you that,” Sue said with a smirk. “If you knew, you might decide you don’t like him and try to run away.”

“I already did try to run away!” Kurt protested. “And now I’m in jail. You think I’m going to run away from here? How?”

“Sorry, Lady Hummel, the law’s the law.”

“I thought you just said you didn’t care about following the law!”

“Only when it’s amusing to me.”

“I demand to speak to a lawyer,” Kurt said. Blaine hid his face in his hands.

Sue stood up from her desk. “That’s your right. But if you’re not married within forty-eight hours, this deal will expire and we’ll press charges.” She left the room, signaling for the police officer to take them back to their cells.

“What should we do, Blaine? What do you think?” Kurt said in a hushed voice as the officer helped them stand.

But Blaine only sighed and looked away, defeated.

\------------------------

Blaine leaned against the dirty wall beside the pay phone, trying to prevent himself from collapsing. “Please, mama. Please.”

“No, Blaine,” she said on the other end of the line. “I understand how you must feel, but your father is right. There’s no way we’re going to pay for a lawyer for _you_ to fight against _our_ decision. You can talk to the court-appointed lawyer if you want to, that’s your choice. But honey, please, can’t you trust us? We picked someone who we think will make you very happy. Don’t fight this, Blaine. Not anymore. I promise you that this marriage will be for the best.”

Blaine sighed and said nothing.

“We’ll be there, honey. We’re coming up to New York, for your wedding or your trial, whichever it is. I love you. And so does your dad.”

Blaine dropped the phone receiver back into its cradle and slammed his fist into the wall. “Ow!” he yelped.

“Fuckin’ rich kid, you a fuckin’ wimp-ass loser.”

Blaine whirled around to face the other prisoner, who had been waiting in line for his turn at the pay phone. “My parents are making me get married…” he stammered, not sure how one should speak to a fellow criminal in prison.

“Yeah? You fuckin’ lucky, that what you are. My parents don’t love me ‘nuff to ‘rrange me no fuckin’ marriage. Damn fuckin’ sweet, if you ask me.”

“Wow … okay ...” Blaine slunk away, heading back toward his cell.

\------------------------

The court-appointed lawyer looked incredibly bored. Kurt took a seat at the table where the lawyer was already sitting, stacks and stacks of case files in front of him.

“Hummel … Hummel … here it is.” He opened one of the folders. It looked a lot like the one Sue Sylvester had. Perhaps it was exactly the same. Kurt didn’t know what defense lawyers were given.

The lawyer shook his head. “This is a standard form contract for arranged marriage. There are very few ways to contest it.”

“How few?” Kurt asked.

“It says here that you’re nineteen years old, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You’re an American citizen?”

“Yes.”

“Your sex is male and your gender identification is male?”

“Yes.”

“Your father asserts that your sexual orientation is homosexual, is that accurate?”

Kurt hesitated, considering the possibility of lying about this one.

“Before you answer,” the lawyer said, narrowing his eyes, “let me remind you that perjury is a crime, and also that in most cases where an arranged marriage is invalidated based on sexual orientation, the parents arrange a marriage with someone of the other gender right away.”

“Yes, I’m gay,” Kurt said with a sigh.

“Yeah, sorry, you’re pretty much out of luck. I advise you to take the plea deal. Prison sucks, and since you’re nineteen, even if you serve a full four-year sentence and don’t get lighter treatment from the judge, you’ll still be under twenty-five when your term is over and your parents could _still_ arrange a marriage for you afterwards. You’re stuck, kid. Man up and get married.”

“But…”

“Next!” the lawyer called out, and another prisoner shuffled forwards from the waiting crowd. Kurt rolled his eyes and left the room.

\------------------------

Blaine spent the night before his wedding feeling sorry for himself. He was in a bare, cold prison cell, lying awake in his bunk. Three other men slept in the same cell, and dozens more in the other cells along the dark, echoing corridor. He wished he could talk to Kurt, but he had no idea where he was. He didn’t even know if Kurt was taking the plea deal like he was, or if the only conversations he would have with his best friend for the next four years would be in a prison’s visiting room.

He wondered whether his husband would even let him continue to be friends with Kurt, after what the two of them had done.

He wondered what his husband must be thinking, coming to a jailhouse chapel to be married to a stranger. Not just to a stranger, no, it was worse—to someone who was willing to become a criminal to avoid marrying him. How could this man ever hope to find happiness in such a marriage? How would Blaine be able to win him over, to please him, to convince him that …

To convince him of what? That Blaine wanted to be there, after all? Blaine wasn’t sure that such a thing would ever be true. Marrying a stranger had always been a terrifying thought. Now it was ten times as scary as it ever had been before.

And not just scary, but heartbreaking too. Because there was only one person in the world that Blaine wanted to marry. He’d come so close to being with Kurt. So incredibly close. But it was never to be. Not now. He’d lost that opportunity before he’d even known it was what he wanted.

Blaine took a deep breath, trying to resign himself to his fate. He would have to come to his new husband as a humbled man, willing to accept his parents’ choice and take whatever happiness he could find in it. Obsessing over regrets and could-have-beens was no way to live. The only way forward was, well, forward.

\------------------------

Kurt would be defiant to the last, because that’s who he was. They could force him to marry, but they couldn’t break his spirit. They couldn’t own his heart. He had no obligation to seek domestic bliss in this nightmare that his father and the government had forced upon him. His marriage would be miserable, and he would cheerfully show the world exactly how miserable it was. He would make himself into the poster child against arranged marriage, if necessary.

His head held high, he walked down the corridor to the chapel with two police officers trailing behind him. He was a condemned prisoner walking to his execution. There was no difference. He was not shamed. He knew he was in the right. He was not willing, but he must do this thing regardless.

His husband-to-be had arrived before him. The man stood at the altar, his head bowed. He looked like an animal led to slaughter, his shoulders slumped over in shame or resignation to his fate. Kurt felt a flash of pity for him. It would be a hard thing to be Kurt’s husband under any circumstances. Even if he had been allowed to marry Blaine, who he had realized too late that he loved, sharing a life with Kurt would be no easy matter. But for a stranger, with Kurt defiant and unwilling to work for a happy marriage, it would probably be unbearable. It wasn’t the poor man’s fault that his parents and Burt Hummel had stuck him with this fate. But he was a necessary casualty in Kurt’s war to preserve his own pride.

Kurt walked down the aisle, his chin raised so high that he could barely see anyone around him, let alone the groom, as he approached. He stopped abruptly as he reached the front. The justice of the peace gestured for him to face his husband-to-be, so he pivoted sharply on his heel.

The dark-haired groom turned as well, and then for the first time, lifted his face to see the man who would be his husband.

Kurt’s jaw dropped open. “Blaine?”

Blaine’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates. “Kurt?”


	9. Chapter 9

Relief crashed over Blaine in such a forceful wave that he nearly fell into Kurt’s arms right there at the altar. After the stress and anguish of the last two days, this revelation felt like a rebirth. It was the best possible thing that could have happened. He would be spending the rest of his life not with some stranger he had no feelings for, but with his best friend, the man he had fallen in love with.

But Blaine caught himself just in time, when he remembered that Kurt didn’t feel the same way. Perhaps Kurt would view this as a better outcome than marrying a stranger, but he didn’t want to be in a lifelong relationship with Blaine. In Kurt’s eyes, they were friends only. He would still feel resentment and disgust.

Blaine looked up at the face of his husband-to-be. He’d missed Kurt’s immediate reaction while he’d been caught up in the power of his own. By now, Kurt’s face was ice cold again, held rigidly still in a neutral expression. He knew Kurt well enough to know that this meant he was hiding his true emotions. As soon as the audience was gone – the justice of the peace, the prison guards, and the handful of family and friends who had managed to arrive with just a day’s notice – Kurt’s true feelings would reappear. Blaine could easily imagine the turbulent rage, the righteous indignation, that would spew from Kurt’s mouth. He’d seen Kurt fly into that mood many times before, but this situation was more anger-inducing than anything that had ever happened previously. Blaine wondered if he could find a way to calm Kurt down when that inevitably happened, or whether Kurt would want some time alone at first.

“Do you, Blaine Anderson …”

Blaine swiveled his head sharply to look at the justice of the peace. Lost in his thoughts, he’d tuned out the entire wedding ceremony up to this point. It was just as well. The last thing he needed was another lecture on the importance of marriage to the stability of society and the individual.

Blaine’s father held out his hand to Kurt, palm up, with a wedding band for him to take. Kurt didn’t hesitate. His expression didn’t change. He just picked it up without a second glance.

Blaine looked directly into Kurt’s eyes, searching for any hint of emotion there, but he found none. “I do,” he said, trying his best to convey in two simple words that his consent was granted voluntarily and wholeheartedly, not because of the prison bars that would accompany a refusal. How could he even hope to communicate such a thing? Kurt’s fingers were as cold as the metal band that he slid onto Blaine’s hand. Blaine did his best not to cry.

“And do you, Kurt Hummel …”

Burt nodded his head slightly, with a small smile, as Blaine plucked Kurt’s ring off his open palm. As if Burt’s kindly permission could mean anything at all in this situation. Blaine wanted to scowl at him, but such impoliteness was beyond his abilities. Anyway, he didn’t have a thought to spare for anyone other than Kurt right now.

“I do.” Kurt’s voice trembled just the slightest bit, probably unnoticeable to anyone except Blaine. It was so unexpected that Blaine was startled and paused for a moment, Kurt’s left hand supported in his own, the ring grasped too tightly in his right hand.

Blaine looked up to Kurt’s face, and instead of the rage he expected to find, he saw a look of such sadness and longing and—oh god, fear—in those blue eyes that his breath caught. He slipped the ring gently onto Kurt’s finger, and the act made him feel as vile as one of the prison guards standing behind him. The matching pair of rings on their hands were smaller than handcuffs, but they served essentially the same purpose, in Kurt’s mind.

“You may now share your first kiss as husbands.”

Kurt’s eyes were glassy and wet, despite his attempts to hide everything. Blaine’s heart pounded in his chest. How could he do this, in front of all these people? It was such a horrid violation of their privacy and their emotions.

He put one hand on Kurt’s shoulder and one on his waist, pulling him close as if for a dance. Kurt swayed into him easily, far more so than Blaine expected. He lifted his head to Kurt’s ear and whispered to him. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

Kurt nodded, a movement Blaine felt more than saw. They turned their heads to face each other, and Blaine placed a quick kiss at the corner of Kurt’s mouth.

Everything after that was a blur.

\-----------------

Nothing about this was fair. Kurt’s emotions fought each other for dominance. Defiance conquered rage, and then was itself conquered by joy, which made way for trepidation and then concern for Blaine, which brought back the anger again. He couldn’t tamp down the cycle, and he was thoroughly disoriented. The effort of concealing everything behind a mask of indifference, which had slipped only for a moment during their vows, had exhausted him.

He had no stomach for the hearty slap on the shoulder his father gave him, accompanied by jovial words about how bright his future would be. Nor did he care for the polite congratulations from Blaine’s father, or the ecstatic smiles of his mother. The way Rachel clasped her hands together and cooed at them was altogether too much. Did nobody understand that this was not a happy occasion for them? True, Kurt was happier about the prospect of spending his life with Blaine than with a random stranger, but that didn’t make any of this okay.

His stomach churned at the thought of what Blaine must be feeling. Blaine, who didn’t want to marry him at all, but who was putting on such a brave face anyway. Promising to take care of _him_ , of all things, when clearly it was Blaine who needed someone to hold him up right now. The way he’d looked so far away and lost throughout the ceremony. It had taken all of Kurt’s strength not to sweep him up in a hug and cover him with tender, caring kisses. But of course Blaine didn’t want that. Blaine didn’t love him.

Blaine’s mother tried to corral everyone into a group luncheon she’d reserved a table for at some trendy restaurant or another, but neither Kurt nor Blaine were in the mood. Blaine was trying to beg out of it politely, but Kurt cut right through the bullshit.

“I’m going home,” he announced to the room. A hush fell, but he didn’t wait around. He simply turned and left the building.

“I’ll just … I’ll go with him,” Blaine said behind him. Kurt smiled to himself, but wiped it off his face by the time Blaine caught up.

They rode the subway in silence, unsure what to say to each other and unwilling to risk any conversation in public, lest it lead to a meltdown. The familiarity of home was a relief. The door had been repaired in their absence, and someone—most likely their families—had replaced the twin beds with a queen-size one. Kurt sighed, not quite knowing which of his multitudes of emotions he was expressing, exactly.

Blaine looked at him with huge, misty eyes. “I know this isn’t what you want, Kurt.”

 _Actually it kind of is._ Kurt bit his lip to keep the words from pouring out.

“You must be so angry right now,” Blaine continued. “I understand that, and … there’s nothing wrong with that. You have every right to be angry. But Kurt, I … I hope that eventually you can find a way to be happy with this. With me. Because I … Kurt, I’ll do anything to make you happy. I want us to … I want this to … it’s the rest of our lives, Kurt, and I couldn’t bear it if you spent the rest of your life unhappy.”

There was something odd about this declaration. It took Kurt a few moments to put his finger on it. He stared at Blaine, at Blaine’s wide, concerned eyes. This was too selfless, that’s what it was. Even for Blaine, who always put others before himself, and who tended to make the best of a bad situation. Blaine had been as angry at the idea of an arranged marriage as Kurt had been. But now he wasn’t. Could it be? Could Kurt dare to hope?

“I’m not unhappy,” Kurt admitted in a whisper.

Blaine blinked in confusion. “You’re … you’re not?”

Kurt shook his head, and finally he let himself smile. His cheeks were wet. He must be crying.

Blaine reached up with one hand and cradled the side of Kurt’s face. Kurt couldn’t help it anymore, he couldn’t hold himself back. He tilted his head to rest on Blaine’s hand, almost nuzzling into it. “You … I …” Kurt couldn’t speak.

“I love you,” Blaine said softly.

Kurt squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.

“I love you,” Blaine said again, more loudly, a revelation.

Kurt took a deep, shuddering breath. “I love you, too.” He opened his eyes, and found Blaine staring so deeply into them that his soul felt naked, completely bared before this man he would spend the rest of his life with.

The kiss began with a gentle press of Blaine’s lips against his, but there was no way it was going to stop there. Kurt’s heart soared, and his hands grasped as if of their own accord, clasping Blaine around the back and pulling him closer. He parted his lips and invited Blaine inside, into his mouth, into his heart. He had longed for this for months, ever since that night back in Lima when he’d first realized that his best friend had slowly become the love of his life. How had he failed to notice that Blaine felt the same way? It seemed impossible. This kiss seemed impossible. Their entire situation seemed ridiculously impossible. He breathed in deeply and went right on kissing Blaine, unwilling to waste any more time now that everything had suddenly become perfect.

“But I don’t understand,” Blaine said, finally pulling back. “You were dating Adam…”

“To try to take my mind off you!”

“Because you thought I didn’t love you,” Blaine said, shaking his head. “I was such an idiot not to tell you.”

“We were both idiots,” Kurt said. He thought about it for a minute, trying to figure out what their dumbest move had been. “Oh god, from the very beginning we were complete idiots.”

“Avoiding an arranged marriage to each other, by pretending to marry each other, and then accidentally falling in love with each other, and then being punished for the entire thing by … having to marry each other.” Blaine laughed giddily. “This is going to be the most ridiculous story to tell our children and grandchildren.”

A sobering thought occurred to Kurt. “It has a terrible moral, though.”

“How do you mean?” Blaine cocked his head to one side.

“What do arranged marriage advocates always say? That your parents know what’s good for you better than you know yourself. That once you’re put together with someone compatible, sharing your life together will make you fall in love with that person. That if you trust your parents’ decision, it will all work out for the best.” Kurt threw his hands up into the air, annoyed. “And that’s exactly what happened to us. More or less. We got stuck together, and fell in love. Our parents knew it would happen, and they chose wisely because they knew we were compatible even before we knew it. I don’t want to be the fucking poster child for arranged marriage. This is bullshit.”

“Well, then let’s not tell anyone,” Blaine said.

Kurt began pacing around the room. “Is there anyone who doesn’t already know? Our families obviously know. All our friends from Lima know, or else they will soon. And if you think the rumors of our arrest haven’t already spread all over NYADA and NYU, you’re completely naïve. We’re going to be ‘Kurt and Blaine, the idiots who should have just listened to their parents in the first place’ for the rest of our lives.”

Blaine gently stopped Kurt’s pacing by sliding his hands around his waist. “Hey … it’s going to be okay. We can keep on donating to Voluntary Marriage Now. When we’re rich and famous, we can be their celebrity spokesmen. Just because it happened to work out in our case doesn’t mean it’s a good policy overall. We can change the world and be personally happy at the same time, okay?”

Kurt rocked back and forth in Blaine’s embrace. “Hmmm. Traitors to the arranged marriage cause, are we? I like it.”

“I knew you would, love. You’ve always been a rebel.” Blaine smiled and kissed him again.

“Mmmm. Smash the state,” Kurt said, laughing.

“And happily ever after,” Blaine agreed.


End file.
